“It Was Better He Died”: Doctor Recalls Dele Giwa’s Final Moments

Thirty-nine years after the parcel bomb that killed Newswatch co-founder, Dele Giwa, the doctor who received him at the First Foundation Medical Center, Dokun Adedeji, has given a first-hand account of his final minutes.

Adedeji, who spoke on Monday at the launch of ‘Dele Giwa’s Granite Journalism’ at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Lagos State, said he was on weekend duty when the incident happened and recounted how he was alerted by another doctor who kept shouting, ‘Come, come, come, they bomb Dele Giwa.’

Adedeji:  “I said, ‘You must be kidding me.'” So as I got out, I saw Funmi; Funmi was in blood. She had the cover; was it a blanket or a white cloth around him?” he narrated.

Adedeji said his medical director immediately took Giwa’s wife, Funmi, to his office, while he and others rushed Giwa to the emergency room.

“So my MD came and took Funmi to his office. So we took Uncle Dele to the emergency room. I will never forget what he kept asking me.

He said, “How is Aisha? Do I know anything about Aisha? So I said, no. He said because she was crawling to where he was in the study with Kayode Soyinka. So we set up blood on both arms and also fluid. I tell you one thing: what I saw that day, I have never seen in my practice. He was shattered. His two limbs were open, and then he was bleeding. He was still bleeding in the hospital. Dr. Ajayi came, and we struggled, but he was still talking.

Dele Giwa asked me, “Dokun she mi o ni ku sha? I said I don’t know. So he said I should move the bed up so that he can breathe. So I did.

“I was shaking, but we kept on, and I remember Uncle Ray came in and brought his patella from home. So, but one thing was sure, and I think it was better that he died. There was no way Uncle Dele would have lived with that injury.”

Even if he lived, although he wanted to live, he said, Dokun shey mi o ni ku. And I said, “Be ni, e ni ku.” But I knew the end was there. So he said to me, “After all, he asked after Funmi, his wife.” I said, “She must be somewhere.”

He kept talking; he wanted to talk, but I thought it would be better for him not to talk so that we could conserve him. But at about one o’clock, he died. I remember very well his blood was on my clothes and on my shoes. I hung them for, like, five years in the corner of my room so that every time I saw them, I would remember. Uncle Dele was not just my patient. He was like a brother.

He treated me like a brother. He said, I’m sure Uncle Biodun will remember; he was coming to visit you on that Sunday. He said so, but he never did.

And what I remember, I think it was Tony Momoh, and then he spoke and said that they were going to look for whoever killed Dele Giwa. And unfortunately, nobody ever found who killed Dele Giwa. I remember very well two people I will never forget, Dele Olojede and co., who kept writing in the Guardian, “Who killed Dele Giwa, who killed Dele Giwa, until they had to run out of Nigeria.”